Death Rate From Obesity Gains Fast On Smoking

Published: March 10, 2004

WASHINGTON, March 9—
Obesity is near to overtaking smoking as the No. 1 cause of death in the United States, government researchers said on Tuesday, and other research shows that its adverse health effects could soon wipe out many recent improvements in health.

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that tobacco use was still the leading cause of death in 2000, killing 435,000 people, or 18.1 percent of everyone who died.

But poor diet and physical inactivity caused 400,000 deaths, or 16.6 percent of the total, the report said.

An estimated 129.6 million Americans, or 64 percent of the population, are overweight or obese. Obesity is defined as having a body mass index -- a ratio of weight to height -- of more than 30. That usually means being 30 pounds overweight for a woman and 35 to 40 pounds overweight for a man of average height. More than 30 percent of adults in the United States -- or 59 million people -- are obese, according to the disease control centers. Serious health implications, like heart disease and diabetes risk, are associated with a body mass index of 30 and above.

If Americans continue to get fatter at current rates, by 2020 about one in five health care dollars spent on people ages 50 to 69 could be a result of obesity, 50 percent more than is spent now, another study, by the RAND Corporation, found.

''Americans need to understand that overweight and obesity are literally killing us,'' Secretary Tommy G. Thompson of the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement.

The Department of Health and Human Services began a public relations campaign on Tuesday emphasizing that people do not need to shake up their lives to lose weight, but can take small steps like walking to work sometimes or taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

The RAND study, published in the journal Health Affairs, found that in 2000, 14 percent of the money spent on health care for American men ages 50 to 69 went to obesity-related complications, including diabetes and heart disease. In 2020, that could rise to 21 percent, the study said.